Back in May, the inaugural $200 buy-in Pennsyl-MANIA had a $250,000 guarantee, which is crushed by drawing 2,774 entries (1,760 unique + 1,014 re-entries) and generating a $515,964 prize pool. Coming out on top of that tournament was Dillon “D-Low1527” Longenbach, who secured $69,670.79 after a heads-up deal with “justbuy44”, who took $58,175.62 in prize money.

“It is honestly surreal and very humbling it still has not fully sunk in,” Longenbach told PokerNews after winning the largest online poker tournament ever held in Pennsylvania. “A lot of people told me I was wasting my time focusing so much energy on poker but nobody is saying that now so it really validated all the work I have been putting in to become a better player.”

Longenbach a PA Superstar

Longenbach grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and graduated in 2012 from Council Rock North High School.

“I was not what you would call a star student so I decided against pursuing further education,” he said. “I started working in the warehouse at a small equipment company Springer Pumps, LLC. at the age of 19 and have been there since eventually working my up to Warehouse manager and inside sales.”

Longenbach, who had two brothers and a sister, has squeezed in poker in between work and time with his girlfriend of three years.

“I was about 10 years old when Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP and I started playing with my dad and friends shortly after. I eventually started playing on sites such partypoker at the young age of 11-12 years old. I can still remember sitting in my father’s living room with sunglasses on to play online poker. I thought I was a big shot. Eventually, I stopped playing for many years and focused on sports before rekindling my love of poker about 3-4 years ago.”

Click here to download PokerStars PA for desktop

Q&A w/ Longenbach

PokerNews: Can you tell us a little about the PokerStars Pennsyl-MANIA tournament back in May?

Longenbach: The first Pennsyl-MANIA was awesome. It was a great tournament with a great structure. I enjoyed the longer levels of 20 minutes as most PokerStars PA tournaments have short levels between 8-12 minutes. I actually only had three big blinds left when we made it to the money. At that point, I was just happy to make it to the money and figured I would be eliminated shortly after before winning a handful of flips and somehow battling back to a playable stack for Day 2.

Another crazy part of the tournament that will stick with me is the botched deal at the final table. I was sitting in third place with five people left and we all agreed to make a deal. The deal would have seen me get $40K but because a few players were having technical difficulties we couldn't complete the deal. When play resumed I went on a tear eliminating the last four people to claim the title and top prize. I have had some other small tournament wins and final tables but nothing anywhere close to this size!

Any plans for the money?

My only plans with the money at this point is to make a down payment on my first home with Shelby, my longtime girlfriend. Other than that, nothing planned at the moment. I do plan on playing more events and look forward to playing some more live events once live poker makes its return.

What do you think helped propel you to the big win?

I have a group of friends we like to call ourselves "Team No Tilt" as we motivate each other to always work on our mental game and not let our emotions factor into our play. They always help in the inspiration and motivation department. Once the tournament was announced it was a no brainier to enter and I have the bankroll for the event so there was no need to play any satellites.

Do you ever play live poker?

Yes, I use to play a ton of live poker mostly cash games at Parx Casino. I have actually only played a handful of live tournaments as I did not really have the proper bankroll until recently to play the tournaments I would have liked. I will 100% be playing a ton of live events once they return. While online poker is great and I enjoy it, nothing compares to sitting at the table and being able to get a live read on someone.

What is the story behind your screenname “D-Low1527”?

My nickname since I was a young kid as always been “DLow” and my two favorite numbers are 15 and 27, so I figured it would make a good screen name.